There’s an atmosphere of purpose, of multiplicity across Old Delhi. Stories interwoven into each other peek out through the cries of the shopkeepers and the snippets of conversations that float dreamily, incessantly across its bustling streets. Like the buildings of this place, people and emotions and memories pile over and over and over each other in a desperate run for acknowledgement. It’s funny how things gain a bland uniformity this way; the sheer juxtaposition of a multitude of eras, narratives, and people gives a singular face to this place.
If Old Delhi were a character, it’d constantly be running. Running from its past, running to its past, stumbling and pushing and forcing its way to an unknown destination. The quietude of your place always got on your nerves; you’d try to fill it constantly with sound, noise, laughter. Silence always felt too inert to you, as if it enveloped all activity like a lullaby, compelling everything to stop, breathe, and rest. I’d constantly reach out for your hand as your fingers would attempt to carry off beat after beat on the table, in a desperate attempt to remind you that stillness can also be compelling.
I never really got your need for movement back then. You’d walk out, walk in, pace about- circle, circle, just circle around- as if every motion added purpose to the placidity of our being. You liked to walk around the bazaar, grasping my hand tightly, as if fearing that the air of exchange would engulf us too. There was so much to give, so much to take; you worried that we’d end up bartering ourselves for a shiny, silver cage, “Thirty rupees only, miss.”
Leaving is a tune-less dance, so quick and unquestioning in its permanence. I never expected it to be so hurried, so very devoid of backward-glances and loosening grips. I cannot stand movement, I cannot get rhythm.
Last evening, I tried to stand still in the middle of a by-lane in the old city, in a desperate bid to conjure you back to life. In retrospect, I cannot fathom why I thought that would work- it screamed solitude in the midst of alluring animateness, and you would’ve hated that. Countless, countless hands brushed uncomfortably against mine, and a procession of insistent shoulders had to push, push, push, before I realized that there was no synchronicity left between you and my memory of you. You would never concede to becoming a memory colorized in tranquil waves of green, grey, blue.
Goodbye.
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